This chapter has challenged me to live a war-time lifestyle and not just a simple life. What is the difference? I was surprised by the drastic differences and implications for the sake of the gospel.
Read on....
Why I Use the Phrase “War time Lifestyle”
Sometimes I use the phrase “wartime lifestyle” or “wartime
mind-set.” The phrase is helpful—but also lopsided. For me it is
mainly helpful. It tells me that there is a war going on in the
world between Christ and Satan, truth and falsehood, belief and
unbelief. It tells me that there are weapons to be funded and used,
but that these weapons are not swords or guns or bombs but the
Gospel and prayer and self-sacrificing love (2 Corinthians
10:3-5). And it tells me that the stakes of this conflict are higher
than any other war in history; they are eternal and infinite:
heaven or hell, eternal joy or eternal torment (Matthew 25:46).
I need to hear this message again and again, because I drift
into a peacetime mind-set as certainly as rain falls down and
flames go up. I am wired by nature to love the same toys that the
world loves. I start to fit in. I start to love what others love. I start
to call earth “home.” Before you know it, I am calling luxuries
“needs” and using my money just the way unbelievers do. I begin
to forget the war. I don’t think much about people perishing.
Missions and unreached peoples drop out of my mind. I stop
dreaming about the triumphs of grace. I sink into a secular mindset
that looks first to what man can do, not what God can do. It
is a terrible sickness. And I thank God for those who have forced
me again and again toward a wartime mind-set.
What It Looks Like in Wartime
I thank God for Ralph Winter, for example, who not only wrote
powerfully about a wartime lifestyle, but has lived it as a missionary,
professor, founder of the U. S. Center for World
Mission, and tireless advocate for the unreached peoples of the
world. He gave the following vivid illustration of the difference
between a wartime and a peacetime mentality about the use of
our possessions.
The Queen Mary, lying in repose in the harbor at Long
Beach, California, is a fascinating museum of the past. Used
both as a luxury liner in peacetime and a troop transport during
the Second World War, its present status as a museum the
length of three football fields affords a stunning contrast
between the lifestyles appropriate in peace and war. On one
side of a partition you see the dining room reconstructed to
depict the peacetime table setting that was appropriate to the
wealthy patrons of high culture for whom a dazzling array of
knives and forks and spoons held no mysteries. On the other
side of the partition the evidences of wartime austerities are
in sharp contrast. One metal tray with indentations replaces
fifteen plates and saucers. Bunks, not just double but eight
tiers high, explain why the peace-time complement of 3000
gave way to 15,000 people on board in wartime. How repugnant
to the peacetime masters this transformation must have
been! To do it took a national emergency, of course. The survival
of a nation depended on it. The essence of the Great
Commission today is that the survival of many millions of
people depends on its fulfillment.2
Given the vulnerability of my heart to the seduction of the
peacetime mind-set, which is pushed into my mind every day by
media and entertainment, I need these images and these
reminders. We are at war, whether the stocks are falling or climbing,
whether the terrorists are hitting or hiding, whether we are
healthy or sick. Both pleasure and pain are laced with poison,
ready to kill us with the diseases of pride or despair. The repeated
biblical warning to “be alert”3 fits the wartime image. And I need
this warning every day.
Why Not Speak of a “Simple Lifestyle”?
It is more helpful to think of a wartime lifestyle than a merely
simple lifestyle. Simplicity may have a romantic ring and a certain
aesthetic appeal that is foreign to the dirty business of mercy
in the dangerous places of the world. Simplicity may also overlook
the fact that, in wartime, major expenses for complex
weapons and troop training are needed. These may not look simple,
and may be very expensive, but the whole country sacrifices
to make them happen. Simplicity may be inwardly directed and
may benefit no one else. A wartime lifestyle implies that there is
Living to Prove He Is More Precious Than Life and
is a great and worthy cause for which to spend and be spent
(2 Corinthians 12:15).
Sometimes I use the phrase “wartime lifestyle” or “wartime
mind-set.” The phrase is helpful—but also lopsided. For me it is
mainly helpful. It tells me that there is a war going on in the
world between Christ and Satan, truth and falsehood, belief and
unbelief. It tells me that there are weapons to be funded and used,
but that these weapons are not swords or guns or bombs but the
Gospel and prayer and self-sacrificing love (2 Corinthians
10:3-5). And it tells me that the stakes of this conflict are higher
than any other war in history; they are eternal and infinite:
heaven or hell, eternal joy or eternal torment (Matthew 25:46).
I need to hear this message again and again, because I drift
into a peacetime mind-set as certainly as rain falls down and
flames go up. I am wired by nature to love the same toys that the
world loves. I start to fit in. I start to love what others love. I start
to call earth “home.” Before you know it, I am calling luxuries
“needs” and using my money just the way unbelievers do. I begin
to forget the war. I don’t think much about people perishing.
Missions and unreached peoples drop out of my mind. I stop
dreaming about the triumphs of grace. I sink into a secular mindset
that looks first to what man can do, not what God can do. It
is a terrible sickness. And I thank God for those who have forced
me again and again toward a wartime mind-set.
What It Looks Like in Wartime
I thank God for Ralph Winter, for example, who not only wrote
powerfully about a wartime lifestyle, but has lived it as a missionary,
professor, founder of the U. S. Center for World
Mission, and tireless advocate for the unreached peoples of the
world. He gave the following vivid illustration of the difference
between a wartime and a peacetime mentality about the use of
our possessions.
The Queen Mary, lying in repose in the harbor at Long
Beach, California, is a fascinating museum of the past. Used
both as a luxury liner in peacetime and a troop transport during
the Second World War, its present status as a museum the
length of three football fields affords a stunning contrast
between the lifestyles appropriate in peace and war. On one
side of a partition you see the dining room reconstructed to
depict the peacetime table setting that was appropriate to the
wealthy patrons of high culture for whom a dazzling array of
knives and forks and spoons held no mysteries. On the other
side of the partition the evidences of wartime austerities are
in sharp contrast. One metal tray with indentations replaces
fifteen plates and saucers. Bunks, not just double but eight
tiers high, explain why the peace-time complement of 3000
gave way to 15,000 people on board in wartime. How repugnant
to the peacetime masters this transformation must have
been! To do it took a national emergency, of course. The survival
of a nation depended on it. The essence of the Great
Commission today is that the survival of many millions of
people depends on its fulfillment.2
Given the vulnerability of my heart to the seduction of the
peacetime mind-set, which is pushed into my mind every day by
media and entertainment, I need these images and these
reminders. We are at war, whether the stocks are falling or climbing,
whether the terrorists are hitting or hiding, whether we are
healthy or sick. Both pleasure and pain are laced with poison,
ready to kill us with the diseases of pride or despair. The repeated
biblical warning to “be alert”3 fits the wartime image. And I need
this warning every day.
Why Not Speak of a “Simple Lifestyle”?
It is more helpful to think of a wartime lifestyle than a merely
simple lifestyle. Simplicity may have a romantic ring and a certain
aesthetic appeal that is foreign to the dirty business of mercy
in the dangerous places of the world. Simplicity may also overlook
the fact that, in wartime, major expenses for complex
weapons and troop training are needed. These may not look simple,
and may be very expensive, but the whole country sacrifices
to make them happen. Simplicity may be inwardly directed and
may benefit no one else. A wartime lifestyle implies that there is
Living to Prove He Is More Precious Than Life and
is a great and worthy cause for which to spend and be spent
(2 Corinthians 12:15).
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